Cultural funding important for Canada's future, panel says
Last Updated: Thursday, September 25, 2008 | 6:14 PM ET
CBC News
Funding culture helps Canada compete as a nation on the world stage, but the government shouldn't try to put a number value on artistic creation, say industry representatives from Canada, the U.S. and Europe.
"It's interesting in Canada, when we talk about rebuilding infrastructure, we tend to talk about rebuilding physical infrastructure — roads and bridges — or social infrastructure — schools and hospitals," said Toronto-based Greg Reed, vice-chair of Business for the Arts, a group of current and former CEOs advocating corporate investment in culture.
'Culture is very high on the agenda of government policies all over Europe.'—Ritva Mitchell, European Institute for Comparative Cultural Research
"The cultural infrastructure is what's going to differentiate Canada as an economically competitive nation in the future. Those knowledge workers who can go anywhere in the world, they expect good schools and hospitals, they expect good roads and bridges.… What will decide where they go is a thriving cultural community and where there's sort of a distinctive buzz about the place," Reed told CBC Radio's cultural affairs show Q on Thursday.
In Europe, which sees itself as the most competitive knowledge-based society in the world, creativity and innovation are highly valued by governments, said Ritva Mitchell, president of the board of governors for the European Institute for Comparative Cultural Research.
"It is no longer only the ministries of education and culture who support the arts but also the ministries of trade and investment, or trade and employment. Culture is very high on the agenda of government policies all over Europe," Mitchell, who has served as an adviser to UNESCO, the EU and governments in Asia, said from Helsinki.
Canadian funding model a mix of Europe, U.S.
As a relatively young society, Canada has a hybrid way of funding culture that combines elements of both the European and U.S. systems. In Europe, it was the monarchs and the church that first held responsibility for funding arts and culture. Over time this evolved into one of the key roles of the central governments.
However, the American tax system and free market economy allowed for massive concentrations of wealth to rest with individuals rather than governments. Some of these wealthy families — like the Carnegies, the Mellons, the Rockefellers — then donated money to the arts, a tradition that largely continues today, although there are also federally funded institutions like the National Endowment for the Arts.
"There are proportionally more wealthy people in the U.S. who have the means to give philanthropically to the arts," Reed said.
In comparison, Canada is a middle-class nation, "so while there are wealthy individuals who do give to the arts very generously, we do look to the government as the concentration of wealth in this country to fulfil one of its responsibilities: funding the arts," he said.
Today's art cannot be judged immediately, says panel
Having applied and received arts funding on both sides of the border, Canadian poet James Arthur said that artists being criticized for creating controversial work can be one pitfall of the public funding model.
"What's funded becomes a political question to some degree. I think the governments can be embarrassed by the funding of particular projects and I think that creates some vulnerability for arts funding," he said from Oakland, Calif., where he is serving as a Stegner fellow in poetry at Stanford University.
'[When] Rite of Spring was first performed in Paris, there were riots in the streets. There were fist fights outside concerts of Wagner's music.… And yet we would look at those as part of the Western musical canon now.'—Greg Reed, Business for the Arts
Governments simply shouldn't try to put today's artistic and cultural creations to "a market test," Reed said, pointing out that if past leaders had done so, many beloved works would not exist.
"Part of the responsibility of art is to push our thinking, to stretch us into uncomfortable areas. After Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was first performed in Paris, there were riots in the streets. There were fist fights outside concerts of Wagner's music because it was too chromatic and Brahms' music because it was too diatonic. And yet we would look at those as part of the Western musical canon now," Reed said.
Canadian culture admired abroad
An important funding source for culture in Europe — and perhaps something Canada could look into — is the national lottery system, like the ones in the U.K., Finland and Italy, said European cultural expert Mitchell. "During recent years, we had been admiring so many aspects [of] your cultural policy and particularly your work within the UNESCO framework, the UNESCO convention on diversity of cultural expressions," she said.
"When we heard [you] were actually having these [cultural funding] cuts, we couldn't believe it because your country had been a really active player previously."
Mitchell, like many outspoken arts figures at home, referenced the August report from the Conference Board of Canada saying that in 2007 arts and culture contributions added up to 7.4 per cent of Canada's gross domestic product.
"That is one of the biggest figures in the world," she said. "Why does your government want to decrease the amount of money it invests [when] with one of the smallest investments, it is actually harvesting one of the biggest successes?"
